


Overwritten Memories

by Velvedere



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Porn, But mostly angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Bondage, Implied Torture, In Which Thor Is A Ray of Sunshine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of triumphant battle, Thor helps Loki cope with dark memories of what happened in his time with the Chitauri.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overwritten Memories

Sound did not travel in space.

Here, on the asteroid belt, where the Tesseract and Thanos’ inherent power were enough to keep atmosphere, conditions were livable. They were not good by any means, and had it not been for his magic Loki doubted he would have survived at all in the harsh environment the Chitauri called home.

But it was still so quiet.

Even the thin atmosphere of this place failed to conduct sound enough to give it a proper feeling of life. It was a string of dead rocks, floating in dead space, orbiting a dead world and – now – it’s dead king.

Loki stood in one of the many vast, empty chambers that had once been part of a great palace.

The battle had not been kind to Thanos’ domain. What had not been smashed, blasted, demolished, or caved in over the course of the Avengers’ attack stood now only haphazardly supported. Walls cracked from their foundation leaned against each other, swelled and contorted with unbalanced weight. Great stretches of what had once been plasma shields lay shattered like glass upon the ground. Even those that remained intact enough to keep cold space out were laced with spiderweb cracks.

Dust and particles of debris too small to be held down by the asteroid’s meager gravity hovered in the air, granting shape to beams of pale light cast by a distant sun.

And it was quiet.

If Loki closed his eyes, he could see it all as it had been. Flawless shades of silver and lightning blue. Perfectly constructed for function by a will and force that would accept nothing less.

He could imagine it as though not a day had passed since he had last been here.

The faint hum of machinery. The underlying pulse of power, like a heartbeat for Thanos’ operations. The sickly yellow-pink glow of membranes where new Chitauri were grown and burst shrieking from their sacs.

He’d been a curiosity at first, when he had come to this place. Thanos had him bound until he decided he could be trusted.

_Controlled_ , Loki thought.

He could remember the black gleam of Chitauri eyes, leering with hungry trills as his wrists were yanked up painfully over his head.

The laughter under their sneers.

Loki opened his eyes, and the sights faded. Quiet restored.

He let out the breath he had been holding.

“Loki!”

Thor’s voice behind him. Buoyant. Excited. It carried into the stillness somehow without disturbing it. What lay here was already too old, too transfixed, to be bothered by the incoming brightness of an Asgardian prince.

It would swallow him too if given the chance.

“Loki! Come see!” Thor gestured through the great fissure in the cavern wall he had appeared through.

Loki did not turn around. He reached out his hand and let it trail over the cracked casing of what had been a control panel.

His fingertips made floating dust dance and swirl with their passing.

“Anthony Stark was indeed correct! Though our transport was destroyed, he has found a way to harness one of the Chitauri’s warships.”

Loki did not answer.

“I believe he called it ‘reverse engineering.’”

Loki lifted his hand and looked at it. The light of other worlds moved over his skin. He watched the shift and shade as tendons flexed and fingers curled.

His palm was steady, even as he opened and closed it. Certain.

A hand that could wield magic.

_Tell us_ , said the voices. _Tell us what we want to know. Then it will stop._

Loki closed his hand into a hard fist. Flexing muscle until it turned white.

“We can go home!”

Loki did not respond.

He lowered his hand, let it relax, and let the tension flood from his shoulders. He closed his eyes again, allowing his world to shut down to only the sound of his brother’s voice. Familiar and comforting in its enthusiasm.

Thor at last took notice that Loki had not yet turned to acknowledge him.

“Loki?”

No answer.

Thor climbed over the remnants of collapsed pillars further into the cavern. He stepped up to the platform where Loki stood, facing the greater part of the chamber, where it fell away to reveal a wall of dark and depleted egg sacs.

The Chitauri’s birthing room.

Thor’s good humor left him, as did the satisfaction of knowing a battle well fought and won. He turned his eyes up, over the space, seeing also the arching structure built upon the edge of the platform.

Sigils carved into the metal that had once glowed blue were now dark. The arch stood only a little over the height of their own heads, and on a second look – Thor did not know how he could have missed it the first time – he could see the places where one might be bound. Arms stretched overhead and drawn taught.

Like a sacrifice.

Thor looked to his brother, suddenly infused with a cold dread, and again to the arch.

He could not name what it was he saw there in Loki’s eyes, but it was haunted.

“Loki...”

Thor reached out to touch his arm. Gently.

As though stirring from sleep, Loki turned his eyes to him at last.

He smiled, hummed, and the look was gone.

“Hardly the view from the citadel,” he said on a breath light and airy. “Isn’t it?”

Thor could not disguise his mounting horror. He searched Loki’s face, his easily adopted smile, as though instruction for what he should say lay within. Loki had not spoken much of what had transpired in his time with Thanos and among the Chitauri before leading the attack on Earth. But Thor knew more than he said.

He knew as he knew his brother.

It was in the way Loki sometimes flinched when he was touched without warning. Or in the way he grew tense, ready to flee, when there was suddenly movement too near.

Thor did not remember these traits from their time together before the fight on the Bifrost. Perhaps they had been there, and he had only never seen...

There was much he had not seen.

“Loki,” he said again, and let his hand come to rest on the back of Loki’s shoulder.

Loki chuckled, making light of the sudden darkness in the cavern. The darkness that lay beyond the shadows cast by filtering light, and much deeper.

“You know I would never willfully subject myself to another’s rule, brother,” he said. He stepped away to approach the arch.

_The altar_ , Thor could not help but think.

“This is where he...persuaded me.”

Loki lifted a hand to trace one finger over the dark engravings along the arch. Thor did not recognize the sigils, or know what purpose they served, other than they must have bound Loki in some way. Kept him from using his magic to escape. There would have been no other way to hold him.

“And,” Thor began, though hesitantly. “The Chitauri...”

He did not want to ask. A great part of him did not want to know what horrors were inflicted upon Loki in this place.

But an even greater part of him believed that if Loki spoke of such things, then they would no longer be hidden away inside him. His words would be upon the air. Between them. Thor could help carry their weight if he only knew where to hold.

Loki laughed again, quiet and bitter.

“It seems he wanted the Chitauri’s first taste to be of Asgardian flesh,” he said, as though it was a casual matter. He shrugged one shoulder and he let his hand fall from the arch. “Whetting their appetite for the battle to come.”

He turned, and smiled to Thor over his shoulder.

“He was only half right.”

Thor could stand it no longer.

He went to his brother, and put his arms around him in a fierce hug that would not be denied.

Far from the prying eyes of others, Loki allowed it. He even deigned so much as to sag against him, allowing Thor’s strong and solid presence to hold him up. Catch the ragged gasp that at last escaped his chest.

Thor held him, pressing his face to the soft cradle of Loki’s hair, and breathed deep. He could feel the way Loki trembled, now that he held himself not so composed. It was a shaking all the way to the core of his being.

Thor held on as though he could still such memories with strength alone. Or else take them into himself, that his brother would no longer have to suffer.

“Loki,” he said again, and could not say it enough. He would say it for as long and as much as Loki needed to be reminded of himself, that his identity lay beyond this place, and the pain it carried. “Loki...”

Loki clung to him, clung to his conviction. Breathing suddenly felt like too much effort to maintain. His heart beat fast in his chest, demanding deeper breaths than Loki allowed himself to take.

He clenched his eyes shut tight before he grew faint.

Thor touched his hair.

“Loki.”

He lifted his chin, and turned Loki’s face enough to kiss him.

The kiss itself fell soft, gentle on his lips, and like his hold did not release until he felt the shiver in Loki’s shoulders subside. Until Thor heard his breath calm.

Loki opened his eyes to him, fear and resolve battling for dominance in their depths.

This was new, and yet it stemmed from a love very old. Thor had not realized its existence until Loki was no longer there. Then the empty place by his side may as well have been a void in his heart.

He’d chased Loki across realms and time to prove his word to him. Now that they had reconciled, new victories were won, and both of them were more whole than ever before.

“Reconciled,” Captain Rogers had said with a frown. “Is that what we’re calling it.”

“You’d know it as ‘going steady,’” Stark responded.

Agent Romanoff had only raised an eyebrow.

“This place holds dark memories for you,” Thor whispered. He drew Loki to him, closer. One hand combed hair like a raven’s wing through his fingers.

Loki said nothing, but offered no resistance. He closed his eyes and tilted his head into Thor’s touch, the barest of strain creasing his smooth brow. He lifted a hand to grip Thor’s wrist, as though to keep him close.

He felt Thor’s breath on his skin. It spurred a response down his side, an involuntary tightening.

He let his breath go in a quiet sigh.

Thor held him, and he held on in return, enough to feel the rumble like distant thunder in his chest as Thor spoke:

“Then let us make new ones.”

Thor took hold of Loki’s hand. He caught his lips once more with firm affirmation, and guided his wrist up over his head.

Fingers linked, he pressed the back of his palm against the cool metal of the arch.

A curved indention spanned the length of the arch’s interior, just large enough to fit one’s hand in, where it might be bound.

The energies had long gone dark, but Thor pressed Loki’s hand into it anyway, curling his fingers tight over the ledge where he could only just hold on.

Loki’s eyes snapped open. Alarm raised his free hand to Thor’s chest to immediately shove him away, cry falling muted against his mouth.

Thor caught his hand, and held it against him. Just over the strong, firm beat of his heart.

“Do not let go,” he rumbled, a quiet order issued without ferocity. “And do not fear.”

He held him that way, his hands certain, his strength sure, until the initial surge of Loki’s panic eased.

It did not cease, but Thor kissed him again and moved his second hand up to join the first.

“Feel me,” Thor spoke against his lips. “Know nothing but me.”

When he met Loki’s eyes, he could see that which burned within. His fear and the anxiety to flee. His royal indignation that Thor would be so bold. The fire of defiance his pride refused to release even in the face of darkest peril.

And, perhaps most importantly, Thor could see that he knew.

Thor could not hold him here if he did not wish it. Loki could easily escape.

Yet he remained. Breath drawn and body tense and trust exposed as only Thor would ever see.

Thor’s heart ached with the pain of joy, knowing they could still achieve this intimacy between them. Knowing Loki would allow it.

He kissed Loki again, deeply. Hands cupped beneath his jaw and thumbs brushed at the barest edges of his lips, worship and gratitude far too small and meaningless concepts to convey what Loki’s gift meant to him.

Thor would strive to prove worthy of receiving it.

His hands followed the tension down Loki’s body. His grip on the arch pulled the rest of him only just off the soles of his boots. Thor could feel his heart pound, hear the tremor again in his breath, but there was no reason to panic.

Thor was there, ever in contact.

“Know only me, brother,” he repeated, over and over, first against his cheek then soft on the back of Loki’s neck as he circled behind him.

His hands never fully left him, save to reach and unhook the clasps of his cloak. It fell, pooling around his feet with only the soft sigh of settling red.

Thor reached around him. He pressed Loki close and touched a hand to his throat.

Fingertips drew across pale skin. Over the soft throb at his neck.

Loki closed his eyes and tilted his head back to let it rest on Thor’s shoulder. His lips parted and the smallest of sighs escaped into the still air. His hands where they held onto the arch with no bonds beyond those willingly adopted clenched tight, knuckles standing white and strained as Thor’s hands moved across him. They undid the front of his long coat, parted the material enough to feel across the tighter layers beneath. Just over his skin.

“There’s nothing else,” Thor whispered close to his ear.

“Only you,” Loki finished.

Thor was everywhere. Filling his every sense. Banishing the dark when behind his closed eyes Loki threatened to be overwhelmed by the memories of high shrieking and painful sears across his body. Thor swept it away with his touch. Silenced the voices with his kiss. Replaced old and jagged pains with the soothing calm of his warmth.

Thor’s hand drew down, reaching just between his thighs. Enough to make Loki arch.

“Only you,” he repeated, like a prayer.


End file.
